Colorado Looking to Improve on the Arizona State Experience

The 1970's were a very good decade for the Arizona State Sun Devils. The were coached by the legendary Frank Kush. He was 176-54-1 as a head coach. He was 6-1 in bowl games. The field at Sun Devil Stadium is named after him.

Kush's teams were so good that the Fiesta Bowl was created in response to the Sun Devils being shut out of major bowls around the country. Nobody wanted to play them. So the Fiesta Bowl was created for the winner of the Western Athletic Conference and played at Sun Devil Stadium.

In the first five Fiesta Bowls, the Sun Devils played in (and won) four of them. All this after the undefeated (11-0) ASU squad was shut out of the major bowls in 1970. The Fiesta Bowl was in place starting in 1971 and the Sun Devils were on their way.

• 1971 -- Sun Devils go 11-1 and defeat Florida State in the inaugural Fiesta Bowl.
• 1972 -- ASU goes 10-2 and defeats Missouri in the Fiesta.
• 1973 -- Devils go 11-1 and defeat Pittsburgh.
• 1975 -- Arizona State again goes undefeated (12-0) and beats Nebraska in the Fiesta Bowl.
• 1977 -- ASU wins only 9 games and finally loses their first Fiesta Bowl to Penn State.

In 1978, Arizona State and Arizona joined the Pac-8, which was renamed the Pac-10. The joke in the western part of the country at that time was that the newly expanded conference should have been named the Bigger 10, a reference to the Pac tie in with the Big 10 for the Rose Bowl.

Arizona State fans were excited to have their team be a member of the biggest and baddest conference in the country. They were part of the Conference of Champions and an undefeated season would usually be considered a National Championship.

Things did not work out as they planned. Kush was fired during the 1979 season after a former player filed a lawsuit against the university and the coaching staff for mental and physical harassment. Kush would eventually be found to be not liable in the case, but by then he was no longer in collegiate coaching.

Without their head coach of 21 years, the dreams of conference and national championships in football took a severe detour. In the 35 years since joining the Pac-12, Arizona State has only TWO outright conference championships (1986 and 1996). They tied USC in 2007 for their only other claim to a conference championship. 

In that same time frame,

• USC has 10 outright titles, and six shared titles.
• UCLA has 4 outright and three shared titles.
• Washington has 4 outright and three shared titles.
• Oregon has 4 outright and one shared title.
• Stanford has 3 outright and one shared title.

The point is that the Pac-12 is a tough conference to play and win in. Few teams in the entire country have the financial support of Oregon and USC, and NO teams in the country have more D-1 high school prospects in their backyard than USC and UCLA.

Now in their 4th season in the Pac-12, Colorado has yet to qualify for a bowl game, let alone win a conference championship. Fans of the Buffaloes are excited to be a member of the Pac-12. They are excited that the program seems to be moving in the right direction under head coach Mike MacIntyre.

But the Buff faithful are hoping for a better record over the next 30 years than a paltry 2 outright conference championships. They are doing their best to upgrade the facilities and selling points of the university, but sometimes that is not enough. In the Big 8 days, Colorado was the academic powerhouse of the conference. In the Pac-12, they're lucky if they are considered to be in the upper half.

The Pac-12 is a tough place to play, but it is an honor to be in that company. Colorado fans need to remember that, and glory in the fact that nearly EVERY destination on a road trip to see the team in conference play is a major improvement on the old options of Norman, Lincoln, or any place in Kansas.

Go Buffs!